Jerome Stueart + Queerness, Art, Books, Geek Culture, and the Yukon

vampires

I’ll be at Mac’s Fireweed, Friday April 23rd from 4-6pm signing copies of EVOLVE: Vampire stories of the new undead–an anthology edited by Nancy Kilpatrick, where I have a story, “How Magnificent is the Universal Donor.” It’s all-Canadian (or in my case, landed immigrant), all vampire and the theme is the evolution of vampires. As far as I know, this has never been done. Shaking up the old rules. These are new kinds of vampires.

Come and find out how vampires have evolved and what they’ve become. Or just come and say hi. I’ll be behind a lonely desk, and will want company.

This is the YUKON launch of the book–and we’re planning a reading in Tagish–sometime soon. It’s been launched now in Brighton, UK at the World Horror Convention in front of other horror writers; it’s been launched in Toronto in front of fantasy, science fiction and horror enthusiasts; and it’s being launched in Winnipeg, Montreal and Vancouver as well.

Wouldn’t you know that 11-18 year olds have plenty of reasonable, thoughtful ideas about the evolution of vampires? Because of the anthology I’m a part of that comes out next week (Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead) I threw out the question —where do you think Vampires are going–or should go?— to my writing students. They are all voluntary writers who stay after school to work on their own writing (which usually has a horror-tinge to it) and they were freakin’ brilliant. I LOVE these guys.

Imagine them sitting around a grouping of four tables shoved together, in the French library of FH Collins.[Just gonna use their first names–they’re cooler that way] I didn’t do any editing to this dialogue. I have some pretty smart high school kids.

Here are their thoughts:

Santana: I’m looking for more variety in vampires. I think vampires have to move away from being either completely evil or sparkly good.

Franz: They used to be the icon of horror. I think people forget that vampires used to turn into bats.

Erin: They’re vampires. They have to eat. They’re not going to drag the carcass of a deer into the forest so they can revive it. They aren’t going to be helpful.

Zeb: They need to go back to the basics. They’ve moved from Dracula to whiny good guys, and I think they need to swing back to Dracula. I’ve seen quite a few vampires in between good and evil: Dresden Files has multiple “courts” of vampires. Some of them bad and some of them really bad.

Franz: Yes, I’m tired of angsty vampires. I read about this one vampire who was all angsty and then he was bloodthirsty and killed people, but he was a lot more interesting when he got older and more complex. He wasn’t as angsty and he wasn’t as bloodthirsty. He was light hearted and pretty hilarious.

Santana: Authors shouldn’t be afraid to expand the genre–to have vampires that are neither good nor evil, but neutral. I want them as complex as real people. I want them in modern day settings dealing with our own vampire crazy culture.

Zeb: Terry Pratchett had some really cheerful vampires called Magpires who wore bright clothing but they were really evil people!

We all started citing some places that vampires still haven’t gone yet….

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And then …. they started to come up with ideas about what THEY would write about these vampires. And they were such fantastic ideas, I can’t write them here… I have to let these kids tell them. But they are brilliant.

I’m hoping that they read Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead and give us a review of the book–to see if authors were able to “expand the genre” as Santana mentioned. I’d like to see how this meets their expectations of where Vampires should be going…

Coming up, Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead will be launched in Toronto at Ad Astra, the science fiction convention there. It happens April 9-10 in two separate events: one is a the Canadian Launch on Friday night, 7pm at the World’s Biggest Bookstore. And the other is a reading on Saturday at Toronto Don Valley Hotel and Suites which is hosting Ad Astra.

What is Evolve? Evolve is really 24 authors tackling the premise–what would happen if Vampires evolved? What would the new versions look like? When you have a history of Vampires that takes you from the ghoulish looking Nosferatu to the sexy, sparkling Edward, then you already have an evolution of vampires from their horrific beastial state–where being bitten was a life sentence–to teen girls hoping and praying they’ll be bitten by Edward… Where have we come to? What have vampires already become? And where will they evolve next?

As Nancy tells me, this is the first ever all Canadian effort to tackle contemporary vampire stories–and I think we have an exciting premise. If anyone is wondering if Vampires have lost their direction post-Meyers, here’s 24 things to think about for future reference.

Imagine this: what would the future of vampires look like?How would they evolve? 24 Canadian writers thought about this and came up with their ideas. Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead is an all Canadian anthology–23 stories, one poem. It’ll be launched at the World Horror Convention in Brighton England in March.

Yep, I have a story in there, “How Magnificent is the Universal Donor.” In my story, vampires have finally been pulled into positions of power in the medical field. They save the world by stepping in to keep a terrible blood disease at bay, and they continue to keep the world safe. But it’s not a perfect situation…some sacrifices occasionally have to be made for the good of the World. They’re just not telling anyone. Wouldn’t want to stain their new reputations as saviours.

I’m thrilled to be a part of the collection.

The collection is available for pre-order now. A limited number of the anthologies have been packed into little wooden coffins and you can pre-purchase the coffin-encased anthology at this site. You can also order the anthology by itself too, which will be available in March. Can’t wait to be in England pushing these little coffins on our table—it’ll be an awesome visual. As if we’ve made little gnome coffins.

While I’m not normally a horror writer, I just played with the idea of getting to evolve vampires. That was fun! Hope you enjoy it.

Evolve is published by Edge Books, Brian Hades Publisher, and edited by Nancy Kilpatrick.